Maruichi Steel Tube announced on Tuesday the firm posted 6.1% year-to-year lower consolidated operating profit and 7.4% year-to-year lower recurring profit for nine months of April-December 2011. The nine-month net profit halved from the same period of fiscal 2010 mainly due to evaluation loss of securities at 3.8 billion yen.
The firm revised its full-year financial forecast downward. The full-year recurring profit forecast was set 2.3% lower than the previous estimation while the net profit forecast 35.9% lower. Domestic demand would maintain stagnant mainly for building constructions. At overseas, the firm’s sales volume currently levels off in North America and the subsidiary is impacted by weak market price in Vietnam. Thai flood also affected the firm’s export. For April-December, domestic net sales increased by 3.7% to 69.9 billion yen from the same period of fiscal 2010 while operating profit decreased by 4.2% to 11.5 billion yen. The firm couldn’t realize the price hike of steel products fully due to weak demand. In North America, net sales increased by 26.3% to 9.638 billion yen and operating profit increased by 54.5% to 742 million yen thanks to the sales volume recovery and the price improvement. In Asia, net sales increased by 10.5% to 10.8 billion yen when the subsidiary increased the sales volume in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the operating loss was 608 billion yen due to cost increase.
